Understanding our mission and ministry deeply requires an understanding of where God has placed us in time and space. We want to consider what lies beneath the epiphenomena of our lives. By reading a few important texts all by Christian authors from the vantage points of different disciplines, we will gain insight into realities like technology, secularity, class, etc., which are around us and in us. The following key texts, often cited, and widely influential on the post-modern setting, will be engaged with: Alisdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (moral philosophy); Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (history of philosophy); Mary Douglas, Natural Symbols, (anthropology); Byung-Chul Han, Burnout Society (philosophy of technology; David Martin, Tongues of Fire (global sociology); and Jehu Hanciles, Beyond Christendom (demographics). We will also consider related authors (Borgmann, Jenkins, Dreher, J. Smith). For each author, there will be an introductory lecture, and there will be a student(s)’ precis of the content and argument, after which we will have a seminar-style discussion of the import for the Church’s life. Together they will offer distinct but mutually reinforcing tangents on our present situation. Lectures, seminars, readings, guests.
This course will only be offered via synchronous remote learning, as such the only section available in ACORN will be 9101.
